Skip to Main Content

Marleine Bastien: Democracy and the Sacred Right to Vote, Florida

As told by Marleine Bastien
Miami, Florida

Story Narrative:

A woman with long black braids sits in a museum gallery with a black and brown exhibition panel.

In early 2020 (just weeks before the pandemic), Smithsonian staff and their storytelling partners at the Peale, Baltimore, traveled to multiple states in the U.S. to ask residents of those states about voting experiences, the current state of American democracy, what issues brought them to the polls, how they made a difference in their communities, and what Americans' civic responsibilities were, among other complex questions.

Marleine Bastien: (00:01) Democracy means the ability for me, as a citizen, to exercise every right that is given to me under the law, and to live free of fear, free of fear, and to contribute socially, politically, and economically without any fear of reprisals. I grew under a dictatorship, and I know what it means to live with fear. I know what it means to be targeted, not because you are involved in anything subversive, like my parents who were targeted in Haiti because they built a school, and they were teaching adults and children how to read and write. My dad was constantly arrested and accused of being a communist as a result, just because he was teaching adults and children how to read and write. So that was a dictatorship.

(01:03) But here in America, every human being has the right to exercise and attain their full potential, to exercise their rights and attain their full potential. And that's what we try to teach people and to let them understand that this system is different here. You have the right to stand up for yourself. You have the right to live in a community that you built. No one should force you out. If you built your village, you have a God-given right to live in it. If you're working, you put in the hours, you have a God-given right to be paid a living wage, and you have a God-given right to have access to vacation, to have access to at least the minimum, so that you can live decently as a human being. If you are ill, for example, if you are sick, you have a basic human right to access healthcare.

(02:15) And then if you are not satisfied with some of the things that are going on that are impacting you, you also have a right to organize and stand up and fight back. So that is available and acceptable. That is permitted in a democracy. But not everybody comes with that understanding. And people sometimes they come here, they are scared to death. Even doing our recent trip to DC, people told us, "Am I okay? Is it okay for me to share my stories? Is it okay?" People do not believe that they have that right. And that's my idea of a democracy. It's a long answer.

(03:00) I voted for the first time in the 2000 elections for presidential, 2000 presidential elections, and you know how it turned out. And I was really gravely disappointed. I was very excited at first because I grew up in Haiti and I didn't have a chance to vote.

(03:19) And as thousands like me, I was very excited to vote for the first time. And I was disappointed by what happened. And then I was one of the witnesses to testify about some of the efforts that were being made to prevent me and others from voting. Lines of people shouting insults at us while we tried to vote. Fortunately now, people understand better that when they go vote, they should not let anyone deter them from exercising the sacred right because voting is a sacred right.

(04:04) And even now, every day, efforts are being made to trample that vote, to prevent them from voting. But when I voted the first time, I was extremely excited. Because for the first 22 years in Haiti, I did not have a chance to vote. And that's why at our Center, we give our members information about voting. We train them about how to vote because we believe there is nothing more powerful than the right to vote, the right to exercise your sacred right to vote. And there is no power greater than that.


Asset ID: 2022.35.02.c-d
Themes: Democracy, citizenship, rights, voting, freedom, participation, dictatorship, fear, education, Communism, human rights, healthcare, activism, 200 presidential election, voting rights, voter intimidation
Date recorded: January 9, 2020
Length of recording: 0:04:50
Related traveling exhibition: Voices and Votes: Democracy in America
Sponsor or affiliated organization: Haitian Heritage Museum in conjunction with Florida Humanities
More information or related assets: https://www.haitianheritagemuseum.org/voices-and-votes-democracy-in-america/

Media Files: